Historic Tidbits

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Turning 100, a Former Spanish Soldier Laments the Curse of His Birth Year

Andreu Canet is one of the last survivors of the “baby bottle conscription.” Born in 1920, they were drafted as teenagers in an ill-fated bi

Lots to learn about the Spanish Civil War.

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Just six days after opening to the public, a rumor quickly spread that the Brooklyn Bridge was about to collapse. A stampede killed 12 people.

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From Gotham, by Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace.

Who knew Mary Todd was such a shopaholic!

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When New Yorkers Were Menaced by Banana Peels

They slipped and fell. Really!

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“The Bowery, a busy New York street lined with cocktail bars, was once named “bouwerij” (“farm”) for the fields of nearby pasture. If the funfair at Coney Island had been built in 1650, meanwhile, it would have been overrun with bunnies: “conyne” was what the Dutch settlers called wild rabbit.”

- What’s Left of New York’s Dutch Past from BBC Travel.

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Kingsland Avenue at that point was known as "Battle Row", because it was the scene of many family rumpuses.

Memorable Greenpoint, on Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

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Minetta Creek Legends

The city of New York filled in Minetta Creek and built over it, but signs of the river remain today. When building Jimi Hendrix’s studio, Electric Lady Land, workers had to pause construction due to excess water seeping in and put in additional sump pumps. As recently as this year, people claim you can hear the rushing of the creek from the studio’s basement.

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Hooker's map of the village of Brooklyn 1820, built over map by Young & Currie, and others. Brooklyn Public Library collection.

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- Gotham

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Fifth Ave omnibus with passengers, at Madison Square Park - NYC, c.1900.

[onceuponatown]

Omnibus stand outside of Victoria Station. London, England. Ca. 1880s or 1890s.  

Source

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“By 1838, therefore, it was possible to travel from City Hall to Harlem for twenty-five cents, but south of 27th St the cars were pulled by horses. The NY&H has intended to use engines all the way but a clamor against noise, smoke, sparks, and danger - one blew up in 1834 - led to a city ordinance requiring the line to use horses in its lower regions. At 27th St, just before diving under Murray Hill, the horses were unhitched and a little steam locomotive hooked up.”

- Gotham, by Edwin G Burrows and Mike Wallace

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“Tammany Hall denounced Webb as a traitor, and William Leggett, an assistant editor of the Democratic Evening Post, approached him on Wall Street, saying, “Colonel Webb, you are a coward and a scoundrel and I spit upon you.” They exchanged blows until a crowd pulled them apart, but not before Leggett scored with another gob. Political editors were a truculent breed. Leggett’s boss, Willian Cullen Bryant, took a Cowskin whip to William Leete Stone of the Commercial Advertiser in 1831, who riposted with a sword cane, a thrust Bryan parried with his whip until onlookers broke them apart. In 1836 James Watson Webb would assault James Gordon Bennet in the middle of Wall Street.”

- Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, on James Watson Webb who was despised for taking a loan from the controversial Bank of the United States and turning his paper into a supporter of the bank.

[yesterdaysprint]

Times Square, New York, 1959

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Greasers in NYC, circa 1950.

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At track level in Pennsylvania Station, New York in 1910.  I believe the stairways seen on either side of the tracks are the same ones in use to this day.  Photo from the historicnyc instagram feed.

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Corlear’s Hook

“At Corlear’s Hook, adjacent to the shipyards, coal dumps, and ironworks, droves of streetwalkers brazenly solicited industrial workers, sailors and Brooklyn ferry commuters. So notorious was the Hook’s reputation as a site for prostitution that (according to one theory) the local sex workers were nicknamed “Hookers,” generating a new moniker for the entire trade.”

- Gotham, by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. Corlear’s Hook is today the intersection of Jackson St and FRD Dr, the site of Corlear’s Hook Park.

A bit more on Corlear’s Hook from the NYC Parks Department:

“Originally marshland that was used by the Lenape tribe to land their canoes, Dutch settlers of the mid-1600s swiftly took advantage of the area’s gradual coastal incline for loading and unloading of transport vessels. At the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776, the British landing and advance upon General George Washington’s fleeing Continental Army was impeded by a series of hastily erected earthen barricades on the site.  In 1814 the Corlear neighborhood, as it was briefly called, underwent renovations as part of a relief project for thousands of Irish immigrants.  The site’s hills were leveled for use in landfill along the waterfront, making possible the busy docks that soon encouraged industrial and residential growth in the area.“